In the retail industry, the largest expenditures are typically the cost of the goods sold followed closely by the cost of labor expended. With particular regard to the retail grocery or supermarket industry, the impetus to reduce labor costs has focused on reducing or eliminating the amount of time required to handle and/or process the items or goods to be purchased by a customer. To this end, there have been a number of self-service checkout terminal concepts developed which attempt to substantially eliminate the need for a checkout clerk.
A self-service checkout terminal is a system which is operated by a customer without the aid of a checkout clerk. In such a system, the customer scans individual items for purchase across a scanner and then places the scanned item into a grocery bag, if desired. The customer then pays for his or her purchase either at the self-service checkout terminal if so equipped, or at a central payment area which is staffed by a store employee. Thus, a self-service checkout terminal permits a customer to select, itemize, and in some cases pay for his or her items for purchase without the assistance of the retailer's personnel.
However, in particular to a grocery store, there are a relatively large number of items available in the store that do not have a bar code such as a universal product code (UPC) associated therewith. Generally, those items not having a bar code associated therewith are items whose price is based upon the weight of the item. Examples of such items include bulk foods, store prepared foods, and produce such as fruits and vegetables which are typically sold based on the weight of the item(s) to be purchased. The trend in the supermarket industry has been to determine the weight of an un-scannable item at the checkout terminal during the checkout process by using a weight scale (typically associated with a slot scanner device). What is meant herein by the use of the term “un-scannable” item is an item that is manually entered into a checkout terminal (i.e. entered in a manner other than by use of a scanner device).
In order to “key-in” or otherwise process an un-scannable item, a customer operating the self-service checkout terminal must place the un-scannable item on the weight scale and then perform a checkout procedure for the un-scannable item which involves the input of the identity of the us-scannable item. The identity of the un-scannable item is typically input into the self-service checkout terminal by entering an item code such as a product lookup (PLU) code with a keypad or a touch screen associated with the terminal. However, the customer may not readily know the item code associated with the un-scannable item.
A number of varying approaches have been taken in regard to entry of the item code into the self-service checkout terminal. One approach that has heretofore been utilized is to have retail personnel such as a retail clerk enter the item code associated with each un-scannable item either at the terminal itself or at a remote supervisory terminal connected to the self-service checkout terminal via the store's network. However, such an approach undesirably requires intervention into the customer's transaction by retail personnel thereby increasing labor costs associated with retailer's operation and potentially reducing the efficiency of the self-service checkout terminal if the terminal is idled while waiting for an available checkout clerk to enter the necessary item codes.
Another approach which has heretofore been utilized to enter the item code associated with un-scannable items is to place a book containing a list of all of the available item codes at a location near the self-service checkout terminal. However, use of such a book is inherently slow and it is difficult for the retailer to keep the book up-to-date thereby potentially causing confusion for the customer. Yet another approach which has been taken is to display an item selection menu on the display monitor associated with the self-service checkout terminal for use by the customer. Such item selection menus which have heretofore been designed contain an item list of each of the un-scannable items sold by the retailer. Such an item list is grouped into a number of categories based on the type of the item. For example, all fruits are placed in one category, all vegetables are placed in another category, and all bulk foods are placed in yet another category.
However, use of such an item list has a number of drawbacks associated therewith. For example, if the customer chooses an incorrect category at the beginning of his or her search attempt, he or she is likely not to find the item he or she is attempting to find. For example, if the customer chooses the “vegetables” category in an attempt to find tomatoes, the customer may not locate the desired item (i.e. tomatoes) if the retailer placed tomatoes in the “fruits” category. In addition, the item names are typically placed in alphabetical order within each category of the item selection menu. Hence, a customer attempting to locate “BELL PEPPERS” may be undesirably delayed if he or she is searching in the “B's” section of the list and the item name associated with bell peppers is actually located in the “P's” section of the list under the item name “PEPPERS, BELL”.
What is needed therefore is a retail checkout terminal which overcomes one or more of the above-mentioned drawbacks. What is particularly needed is a method and apparatus for entering an item name of an un-scannable item into a self-service checkout terminal which allows the customer to quickly and efficiently find an item name in an item list of an item selection menu. What is further needed is a method and apparatus for generating an item selection menu that facilitates quick and efficient identification of a desired item name by a customer operating a self-service checkout terminal.